Legal and ethical
Includes the laws, policies, complaint routes, records, oversight bodies, and accountability tools families use to challenge exclusion, discrimination, delay, denial of accommodation, and procedural harm in schools.
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How public education discriminates against PDA children through performative care
On Thursday, I changed my work calendar, after suffering a nervous breakdown the night before. On Wednesday, I had 7 meetings in one day, stacked with half-hour gaps. Almost every meeting ran long and I held my pee for 4 hours and my dog pooped on the floor. I had things to accomplish and they…
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A neurodiversity-affirming critique of the BC Ministry’s guide to school conduct
The BC Ministry of Education’s guide presents itself as a blueprint for positive school climates. Yet beneath its conciliatory language, it reinforces behavioural conformity and institutional authority over student autonomy. It fails to address the structural and sensory barriers faced by neurodivergent students, and in doing so, undermines its own claims to safety and care.…
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Neurodiversity-affirming IEP goals that build accountability and reduce burnout
When classrooms become overwhelmed, the strain doesn’t just fall on adults—it radiates through the entire learning environment. Neurodivergent students, in particular, often act as emotional barometers—canaries in the classroom. They feel the tension, chaos, and unpredictability more acutely than their peers. When co-regulation breaks down, or when expectations are unclear, these students are often the…
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Building safer schools through restorative justice and neurodiversity-informed practices
When children are dysregulated the response from educators is too often punitive. For neurodivergent students in particular, the cost of these responses is high: shame, trauma, social exclusion, and a deep erosion of trust. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Restorative justice offers a path forward. Not as a one-time circle or a…
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There’s no such thing as unexpected behaviour
This piece was hard to write. It holds my grief. It documents not only what happened to my child, but how systems made it worse by pretending to be surprised. I share it because too many families are made to carry this alone. Every time I see the phrase unexpected behaviour in a school document, a safety…
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Barriers in the Vancouver school system: a parent’s perspective
For families raising neurodivergent children, navigating the school system can feel like surviving a labyrinth built to exhaust you. What should be a place of growth becomes a terrain of harm and dismissal. Beneath the polished language of equity and inclusion lies a set of invisible barricades—attitudinal, communicative, spatial, systemic, and technological—that quietly erode trust…
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Real leaders lead by example
In May 2025, the Vancouver School Board (VSB) quietly enacted wage cuts that stripped contracted workers—specifically bus drivers and special education attendants—of their living wage top-ups. At the same time, VSB senior leadership quietly accepted significant raises. This decision will result in a 25% wage reduction, with drivers earning $23/hour and attendants only $20/hour [CTV…
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Signs your child’s teacher uses collective punishment (and what it does to them)
Your child might not have the language to name what’s happening, might not recognize collective punishment as a specific practice with a specific name, might only know that something at school feels deeply unfair and that their effort no longer seems to matter. Parents often notice the effects before they identify the cause: children who…
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Dr. A.R. Lord Elementary (VSB SD39): a neurodiversity-informed conduct critique
Dr. A.R. Lord Elementary’s Code of Conduct promises a “safe and supportive environment” on school grounds, on field trips, and during online learning. It embraces the Vancouver School Board’s district-wide conduct framework (AP 350), explicitly affirms the BC Human Rights Code, and applies the values of the school’s P.R.I.D.E. matrix—Purpose, Respect & Responsibility, Integrity, Diversity,…
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Nova Scotia bans collective punishment
Nova Scotia’s Provincial School Code of Conduct Policy underwent a significant update in April 2025, marking a substantial revision of the previous 2015 policy. The updated policy, set to take effect in September 2025, introduces clearer definitions of unacceptable behaviours, delineates new responsibilities for all school community members, and emphasises support for those affected by…
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Fighting for transparency via FOI requests
For parents of disabled children, the struggle for transparency often feels like fishing in murky waters, straining for glimpses of the truth beneath a bureaucratic surface designed to obscure, rather than reveal. It was this feeling that drove me to file a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for records pertaining to my children at their…
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Recent BCHRT decisions expose systemic failures
After reading through a couple of of the recent BC Human Rights Tribunal findings, here are some thoughts: Ongoing delays erode trust Several rulings show how procedural deadlines and scheduling gaps thwart families seeking essential supports. In one decision the Tribunal dismissed parents’ allegations about inadequate consultation and discontinued specialist services because the events in 2017 and 2018 fell…
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Lawyers over learning: how much is VSB paying Harris & Co
As a parent of two children with learning challenges, I found myself deep in the Vancouver School Board’s appeals process. Early on, I heard officials say our children would be supported with “inclusive” classroom resources. In reality, every step felt like an uphill battle. For example, during our Level 1 appeal meeting the board’s own summary…
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A glossary of conditional care
This is a field guide—a survival text for parents who’ve sat through too many meetings where care was promised, repackaged, and quietly withdrawn. These aren’t just phrases. They’re policies. They’re structural violence written in the language of care. They mark the edges of institutional comfort—the places where support ends, and spin begins. They’re the terms…
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Whose barriers get counted in Vancouver School District?
When I first opened the Vancouver School Board’s Accessibility Engagement Summary Report, I did what I always do with these kinds of documents—I made a beeline for the methodology, the numbers, the breakdown of who actually got to speak. On page 10 I discovered that 2,855 people had participated; on page 11 I discovered that…
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School District 48 (Sea to Sky): a neurodiversity-informed policy critique
SD48 conduct decision flow (simplified) ⚠️ Critical analysis ✅ Strengths ❌ Gaps Neurodiversity lens: how the policy holds up Dimension Assessment Notes Disability justice ✅ Partial Equity and accommodation are mandated, but process and supports unspecified Neurodivergent alignment ⚠️ Weak No mention of executive function needs, sensory regulation, impulsivity, masking, or meltdown management Protection from…
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SJ Burnside Continuing Education (SD61): a neurodiversity‑informed policy critique
SJ Burnside Education Centre is an Alternative Education program serving youth aged 13–18 in a small-group, flexible setting. Its published Code of Conduct emphasises high standards of conduct, honesty, integrity, and cooperation during all school-sponsored activities. It explicitly promotes peaceful problem-solving, community engagement, and maintains a personal device policy (e.g., cell phones may be removed if abused). Student Code of Conduct SJ Burnside conduct decision…
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Rot at the root: Why POPARD must be dismantled from the top down
When I first objected to the strategies POPARD proposed, I tried—truly—to assume good intent: that if I just gave them the right information, the clearest language, the most generous interpretation of their mandate, they would course-correct and stop pushing reward charts onto an already-traumatised child. I wrote careful emails, cited the psychologist’s diagnosis, offered specific…
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The high stakes of understanding PDA
Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) might sound like just another clinical term, but for many families it represents a daily struggle that is anything but trivial. PDA is a profile on the autism spectrum characterised by an extreme, anxiety-driven avoidance of everyday demands, even those the child wants to comply with drdonnahenderson.com reframingautism.org.au. This isn’t mere stubbornness or “bratty” behaviour – it’s a…
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He doesn’t go from zero to sixty
“He’s not a car,” I said, exasperated, after someone described Robin as going from zero to sixty. The withering look I received in return was pure disgust—as though I had interrupted a sacred adult ritual, as though I may as well have had a huge boil in the middle of my forehead, oozing pus. But…